The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990 - Hardcover

"This story "The Vietnam Wars, " this terrible history is told with such clarity and passion, detail, intelligence it's hard to stop reading. The tension in the writing keeps your sadness in some kind of check as you read about opportunities for peace lost again and again, and think of today's newspapers and how we are, with some differences, modification, and more firepower, once again half the world away confusing credibility with honor." -- Grace Paley"It is a marvelously wide-ranging and lively synthesis--unmatched in its striking juxtaposition of the Vietnamese revolution with American (old War policy and ideology and in its sensitivity to the human dimensions of the conflict on both sides. This engaged and engaging study deserves a place at the top of everyone's Vietnam reading list." -- Michael H. Hunt, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill"Eloquent . . . A concise and effective exposition of the events of the war, and a cogent analysis of the motives underlying America's decision to make war against Vietnam.'"-- "Kirkus Reviews ""A first-rate synthesis of the vast literature on the Vietnam War which effectively interweaves U.S. involvement in Indochina with relevant developments on the American domestic front in a way that makes both more understandable."-- George McT. Kahin, Cornell University"This is the history of the war in Vietnam we have been waiting for. This is a marvelous achievement--meticulously documented, excitingly narrated, written with grace, wit, and passion."-- Howard Zinn

Intended to be balanced, authoritative and accessible, this book gives equal weight to the Vietnamese and American sides of the Vietnam War. For the Vietnamese the war was the most difficult in their struggle for independence; for the US it was the most difficult conflict since World War II.